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Up South: African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War

During World War I, tens of thousands of African Americans fled the South. In Up South, a Mississippi barber and a sharecropper woman tell how they organized groups to escape Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and forced labor. The promise of freedom and full citizenship drew them to Chicago. Once there, the migrants faced poor housing, discrimination on the job, and racial violence. They responded by forming women’s clubs, engaging in political campaigns, and creating the “New Negro” movement. (Length: 30 minutes)

“Up South offers a fresh perspective on the Great Migration. By allowing the migrants to tell their own stories, the filmmakers have brilliantly transformed a classic migration tale into a touching, deeply personal, narrative of hope, survival and resistance.”
— Robin D. G. Kelley, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California